


All The Heavy Dreaming

by tielan



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Relationship Negotiation, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 09:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2382629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't want to be the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Heavy Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> I think this was from a prompt, but I don't remember anymore.

_What do you want?_

_Whatever you want._

Mako is starting to get tired of that phrase.

She brings it to a stop one afternoon in the lift as they are on their way up to the control room for another review of the Shatterdome’s resources. “Raleigh? What do you want?”

"I…" He stops, catches himself as though he’s never thought about what he’d like to do with himself once the Breach was closed. As though he’d never even thought there might be a future for him without the _kaiju_ trying to attack them all. “What do you mean, Mako?”

Annoyance - and the feeling that he is buying time - make her sharp. “It is not a difficult question. What do you want to do now that the Breach is closed?”

The doors open and they are joined by others on their way through the Shatterdome, with smiles and nods of acknowledgement, and here and there a brief greeting or inquiry. There is no chance for him to answer privately, and she does not expect him to answer her question in public.

This is not just about what Raleigh wants; this is about _them_.

And yet as they make their way up through the levels of the complex, Mako knows the uncertainty that churns within him, like a roiling sea in a storm that might yet drag him under.

She does not like uncertainty - even if one cannot always account for all the variables. But she will cope with it in her work.

She does not want to be uncertain about Raleigh.

So when the lift empties and they are the last ones out, she waits until the people arriving are unloaded and the people waiting are gone and stops in the middle of the corridor. “Raleigh.”

"I want whatever you want." He turns to meets her gaze, and the light skims across stubble that rasps pleasantly when he nuzzles her shoulder. "Whatever makes you happy."

"And if it would make me happy to have you go away?"

He catches his breath and the terror that stabs through him echoes through Mako, too. They’ve become too close not to feel it - even without the neural handshake, even without the Drift.

Mako reaches for him, holds his hands, then lets herself be enfolded in his arms. “I would not,” she says into his shoulder, penitent. “Raleigh, I would not.”

"Maybe you should," he murmurs. "Maybe you’d be better off without me."

"You could think that?"

The laugh chokes in his chest. “After you’ve been Drifting a while, you lose your sense of where the boundaries between you are. It gets harder to remember what’s you and what’s them. And while we were fighting the _kaiju_ , it didn’t matter so much. A few people who didn’t quite know which bits were them and which bits were someone else…?”

"Only now there is a future."

"I don’t…"

"You won’t lose me," she reassures him as he trails off.

"I don’t want to smother you, either. I don’t want to be the man who thought Drifting with you gave him the right to keep you."

"But you would keep me?"

This time, the chuckle gets out. “I don’t think you’d be a very good kept woman.

It warms her in her belly to hear that laugh - to feel him relax against her. Danger passed. “Perhaps you would be a better kept man?”

"I’d be up for that."

"Yes, but you are ‘up’ all the time."

Raleigh grins and tilts her head back to look at her, gentle hands against her hair. “I want you, Mako. I want a future with us. Together. But I want you to want it too.”

"And I do." She tucks her head in under his chin. "But I do not see why I should do all the heavy dreaming."

Raleigh gets what she means. Of course he does. And his arms tighten around her with another laugh as he kisses her on the top of her head. “Okay, I’ll do my share of the heavy dreaming, then. And if you want something different, you can tell me to butt out.”

"Or we can compromise."

"We can do that, too."

"We are okay, then?"

He tilts her head to look up at him - so he can kiss her, a tender touch of lips. “We are now.”


End file.
